Binayak Sen moves high court against life term

Raipur, Jan 6 (IANS) Rights activist Binayak Sen, who was sentenced to life term by a local court Dec 24 on sedition charges, has filed an appeal in the Chhattisgarh High Court, his lawyer said Thursday.”We have challenged the district and sessions court order that convicted Sen under various charges included sedition and sentenced him to life imprisonment,” Sen’s counsel Mahendra Dubey told reporters.

He added that his client had a fair chance to get a reprieve in the high court.

The appeal was filed Wednesday in the high court based in Bilaspur town, some 110 km from here.

Sen, 60, is presently lodged in Raipur central jail after District and Sessions Court Judge B.P. Varma convicted him along with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata-based businessman Piyush Guha for sedition and criminal conspiracy.

The Sen’s conviction on sedition charges was globally condemned by intellectuals.

A doctor by profession, Sen, who is also the vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was awarded by the US-based Global Health Council for his work in global health and human rights in 2008 when he was in a jail in Chhattisgarh on his alleged link with the Maoists.

Upset by the Dec 24 court verdict against Sen, his wife, Illina, told reporters in New Delhi Jan 3 that the political establishment in Chhattisgarh was against her family. She said she feared for her safety and that of her two daughters, aged 25 and 20 years.